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Intelligence officials are comparing a newly discovered secret Islamic State document to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” as it blames Israel for the rise of the Islamic State and crowns U.S. President Barack Obama as the “Mule of the Jews.”
Found in Pakistan’s remote tribal region by American Media Institute (AMI), the 32-page Urdu language document promotes an “end of the world” battle as a final solution. It argues that the Islamic leader should be recognized as the sole ruler of the world’s 1 billion Muslims, under a religious empire called a “caliphate.”
“It reads like the caliphate’s own Mein Kampf,” said a U.S. intelligence official, who reviewed the document. “While the world is watching videos of beheadings and crucifixions in Iraq and Syria the Islamic State is moving into North Africa the Middle East, and now we see it has a strategy in South Asia. It’s a magician’s trick, watch this hand and you’ll never see what the other is doing.”
Retired U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael Flynn and other U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the authenticity of the document based on its unique markings, specific language used to describe leaders and the writing style and religious wording that matched other Islamic State records.
Flynn said the undated document, “A Brief History of the Islamic State Caliphate (ISC), The Caliphate According to the Prophet,” is a campaign plan that “lays out their intent, their goals and objectives, a red flag to which we must pay attention.”
The document serves as a Nazi-like recruiting pitch that attempts to unite dozens of factions of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban into a single army of terror. It includes a never-before-seen history of the Islamic State, details chilling future battle plans and urges al-Qaeda to join Islamic State.
Its tone is direct: “Accept the fact that this caliphate will survive and prosper until it takes over the entire world and beheads every last person that rebels against Allah. This is the bitter truth, swallow it.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal center for human rights who heads Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project, compares the Islamic State threats in the document to the rise of Nazism pre-World War II.
The brutal killing of a teacher and three children at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse in 2012 by an Algerian Islamist was a major signal to the Jewish community that Europe was no longer safe and that not enough was being done to curtail the rise of anti-semitism, he said.
“It’s important to remember what our founder, Wiesenthal said, ‘it often starts with the Jews but it never ends with the Jews,” Cooper said. “As a matter fact [Islamic State] did not create anti-semitism but they are taking advantage of it, and they are building on it.”
The document advocates creating a new terrorist army in Afghanistan and Pakistan to trigger a war in India and provoke an Armageddon-like confrontation with the United States. It also details Islamic State’s plot to attack U.S. soldiers as they withdraw from Afghanistan and target America diplomats and Pakistani officials and blames the rise of jihadi organizations on the establishment of Israel.
“No sooner had the British government relinquished control of Israel, Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Jews, declared the independence of the State of Israel, triggering a global migration of Jews to the Jewish State, and launching the systematic persecution of Palestinian Muslims who had to abandon their homes and migrate,” the document states.
The document discloses the history of Islamic State dating back to the early 1990s and explains why in 2011 its leader, Abu Bakr al- Bagdhadi, unleashed car bombs to avenge Osama bin Laden’s death, and boasts about the suicide rates of American soldiers.
“Urban centers across Iraq exploded with car bombs and IED’s. The losses inflicted upon Americans, apostates, and heretics were unprecedented, as were the suicide rates amongst U.S soldiers,” the document states. “This state of affairs forced Mule of the Jews, U.S President Obama to announce an exit plan.”
The battle plan to “end the world” is described in six phases (three of which have already passed) – ripping pages from al-Qaeda’s original plans to defeat the west, in a graphic illustration of how ISIS sees itself as the true heirs to Osama Bin Laden’s legacy.
Phase 1 “Awakening” 2000-2003: Islamic State calls for “a major operation against the U.S. .. to provoke a crusade against Islam.”
Phase 2 “Shock and Awe” 2004 – 2006: Islamic State will lure U.S. into multiple theatres of war, including cyber-attacks and establish charities across the Muslim and Arab world to support terrorism.
Phase 3 “Self-reliance” 2007-2010: Islamic State will create “interference” with Iraq’s neighboring states with particular focus on Syria.
Phase 4 “Reaping/extortion/receiving” 2010-2013: Islamic State will attack “U.S and Western interests” to destroy their economy and replace the dollar with silver and gold and expose Muslim governments’ relations with Israel and the U.S.
Phase 5 Declaring the Caliphate 2013-2016: Not much details offered here. The document just says, “The Caliphate According to The Prophet.”
Phase 6, Open Warfare 2017-2020: Islamic State predicts faith will clash with non-believers and “Allah will grant victory to the believers after which peace will reign on earth.”
The document urges followers of al-Qaeda and the Taliban to join the Islamic State in overthrowing Arab governments who have relations with the U.S. and Israel, unlike al-Qaeda, which believed it was “important to weaken the U.S before launching an armed revolt in Arab states and establishing a caliphate.”
In response to the document, a senior ranking Israeli official said that in the Middle East the world faces two threats – from Islamic State and from Iran. “We need not strengthen one at the expense of the other. We need to weaken both and prevent the aggression and arming of both,” he warned.
Alistair Baskey, deputy spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council said Islamic State is being monitored “closely to see whether their emergence will have a meaningful impact on the threat environment in the region.”
The document builds on evidence that Islamic State is expanding into the region where the September 11 attacks were born. A united Taliban, backed by the hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraqi oil revenue now enjoyed by Islamic State, would be a “game-changer,” officials said.
The document warns that “preparations” for an attack in India are underway and predicts that an attack will provoke an apocalyptic confrontation with America: “Even if the U.S tries to attack with all its allies, which undoubtedly it will, the (entire global Muslim community) will be united, resulting in the final battle.”
A war in India would magnify Islamic State stature and threaten the stability of the region, said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution who served more than 30 years in the CIA. “Attacking in India is the Holy Grail of South Asian jihadists.”
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry denied the presence of Islamic State in the region, calling it only “a potential threat.”
Unlike al-Qaida, whose focus was the United States and other western nations, the document said Islamic State leaders believe that’s the wrong strategic goal. “Instead of wasting energy in a direct confrontation with the U.S., we should focus on an armed uprising in the Arab world for the establishment of the caliphate,” the document said.
The failure to target the radical Islamic ideas has given the group breathing room to spread throughout the world much like Hitler did.
“We did a lousy job predicting what Hitler was going to do in the 1920s, 1930s – honestly, we blew it,” Cooper said. “It’s hard to take seriously or believe that such hatred was real or would be possible. They made jokes about Jews, degraded Jews but nobody believed that they would be capable of what they were saying. So now, when groups, like [Islamic State] come along and say they are going to do A B and C, you have to take them for their word.”
***
This is not the first revelation when it comes to Islamic State in Pakistan, such that who in the White House, the National Security Council or at the United Nations is really taking heed from 2014?
NBC: QUETTA, Pakistan — ISIS has created a 10-man “strategic planning wing” with a master plan on how to wage war against the Pakistani military, and is trying to join forces with local militants, according to a government memo obtained by NBC News.
Labeled “secret,” the memo was sent by the government of Balochistan, a southwestern province that borders Afghanistan, to authorities and intelligence officials across Pakistan last week. Akber Durrani, the province’s home secretary, called it “routine” and said Sunni militant group and its sympathizers do not have a stronghold there.
But the document suggests that ISIS has Pakistan in its cross-hairs, warning that the group aims to stir up sectarian unrest by dispatching the local militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi on offensives against Pakistan’s minority Shiite Muslim community, further destabilizing a country already battling Taliban and al Qaeda elements. Most Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims. Mistrust has existed between Shiites and Sunnis for around 1,400 years.
Secret letter sent by the government of Balochistan regarding ISIS activity in Pakistan. NBC News
ISIS has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq. It claims to have recruited 10,000 to 12,000 followers in tribal areas on the Afghan border, including in Hangu, which is known for hostility between Shiites and Sunnis, the memo says.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has claimed responsibility for violence against Shiites, and Sipa-e Muhammed, which has struck against Sunnis, were banned after 9/11.
Just days ago, the chief minister of Balochistan, Dr. Malik Baloch, told journalists he had no information about the presence of ISIS in the province. “However, there are fundamentalists whose approach is similar to that of ISIS,” he said.
The memo recommended “strict monitoring” of militants and “extreme vigilance” to ward off any attacks.
There have been other signs of ISIS flexing its muscles in the region. In late September, a pamphlet apparently made by the self-proclaimed caliphate was distributed among Afghan refugees in Pakistan exhorting them to pledge allegiance and lashing out against “America and the rest of the infidels.”In late September, ISIS-aligned militants launched a brutal offensive in Afghanistan alongside Taliban fighters that has left more than 100 people dead. Fifteen family members of local police officers were beheaded and at least 60 homes were set ablaze, officials said.
Not just in the United States, but add Canada as well. Seems there could be many moving parts to this and many questions. Apparently this is a big enough issue that Barack Obama dispatched one of his pesky sternly worded letters to China.
NYT:WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has delivered a warning to Beijing about the presence of Chinese government agents operating secretly in the United States to pressure prominent expatriates — some wanted in China on charges of corruption — to return home immediately, according to American officials.
The American officials said that Chinese law enforcement agents covertly in this country are part of Beijing’s global campaign to hunt down and repatriate Chinese fugitives living abroad and, in some cases, recover allegedly ill-gotten gains. The Chinese government has officially named the effort Operation Fox Hunt.
The American warning, which was delivered to Chinese officials in recent weeks and demanded a halt to the activities, reflects escalating anger in Washington about intimidation tactics used by the agents. And it comes at a time of growing tension between Washington and Beijing on a number of issues: from the computer theft of millions of government personnel files that American officials suspect was directed by China, to China’s crackdown on civil liberties, to the devaluation of its currency.
Those tensions are expected to complicate the state visit to Washington next month by Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.
The work of the agents is a departure from the routine practice of secret government intelligence gathering that the United States and China have carried out on each other’s soil for decades. The Central Intelligence Agency has a cadre of spies in China, just as China has long deployed its own intelligence operatives into the United States to steal American political, economic, military and industrial secrets.
In this case, American officials said, the Chinese agents are undercover operatives with the Ministry of Public Security, China’s law enforcement branch charged with carrying out Operation Fox Hunt.
The campaign, a central element of Mr. Xi’s wider battle against corruption, has proved popular with the Chinese public. Since 2014, according to the Ministry of Public Security, more than 930 suspects have been repatriated, including more than 70 who have returned this year voluntarily, the ministry’s website reported in June. According to Chinese media accounts, teams of agents have been dispatched around the globe.
American officials said they had solid evidence that the Chinese agents — who are not in the United States on acknowledged government business, and most likely are entering on tourist or trade visas — use various strong-arm tactics to get fugitives to return. The harassment, which has included threats against family members in China, has intensified in recent months, officials said.
The United States has its own history of sending operatives undercover to other nations — sometimes under orders to kidnap or kill. In the years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the C.I.A. dispatched teams abroad to snatch Qaeda suspects and spirit them either to secret C.I.A prisons or hand them over to other governments for interrogation.
Both China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to faxes requesting comment. But Chinese officials have often boasted about their global efforts to hunt economic fugitives, and the state media has featured reports detailing the aims and successes of Operation Fox Hunt. Many more details here.
Chinese police agents have been conducting secret operations in Canada — a top destination for allegedly corrupt officials — seeking to “repatriate” suspects and money laundered in real estate.
Vancouver city officials will not comment on co-operation with Chinese agents in “Operation Fox Hunt,” or on suspects pointed to by Chinese news services.
Xinhua news agency reported that while China does not have extradition treaties with Canada, the United States and Australia — the three top destinations for corruption suspects — in 2013 Canada and China signed an agreement to share assets connected to corruption.
Starting in 2014, Chinese agents came to Canada and other countries, Xinhua reported.
The Province found indications in various data sources of large wealth allegedly misappropriated in China and invested in condo and commercial developments and private residences in and around Vancouver.
Also, according to The Province’s review of data posted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, there are a number of offshore shell companies linked to addresses in Vancouver, West Vancouver and Richmond, with connections to Mainland China.
City Manager Penny Ballem was asked if Vancouver officials are taking any actions against money laundering.
“In terms of corruption and money laundering, I can tell you in my conversations with (Vancouver Police Chief) Jim Chu, and the provincial solicitor general, these things are always a challenge for all levels of government,“ Ballem said. “If you want any hard information, you need to talk to Jim Chu.” Many more details of course are here.
In part: Aliya Sternstein, writing in the August 13, 2015 edition of NextGov.com, notes that the “malicious code the Russians reportedly used to jimmy open a White House network, was also reportedly used by Chinese hackers to rupture Anthem’s network, — and, the malware was free.” Ms. Sternstein adds that “the [malicious ] worms were delivered the same way, via phishing emails that looked legitimate; but, actually baited recipients into opening a malicious file.”
“The hackers’ success in each case — underscores how conventional hacking techniques still work against skilled professionals at high-security organizations,” said Patrick Belcher, a Director at the cyber security firm, Invincea. Mr. Belcher co-wrote a paper detailing the initial penetrations at the White House and Anthem,” Ms. Sternstein noted. “These aren’t just any dumb users,” Belcher said. “The top-notch security professionals failed in their jobs not to open suspicious email links.”
“At Anthem, a bogus message in December 2014, tricked the recipient to install what appeared to be an authentic Citrix software update that was really an infected file,” according to past research, Ms. Sternstein wrote. And, last fall, “at the White House, a video of a 2007 Super Bowl ad for CareerBuilder.com ad floated around that showed chimpanzees running a corporation and tormenting their human employee,” according to F-Secure. A State Department email account reportedly was the source of the phishing email that landed at the White House,” NextGov.com noted.
Why could they be spies?
Newly discovered Chinese hacking group hacked 100+ websites to use as “watering holes”
Emissary Panda group penetrated the networks of industrial espionage targets.
In part from Arstechnica LAS VEGAS—Today at the Black Hat information security conference, Dell SecureWorks researchers unveiled a report on a newly detected hacking group that has targeted companies around the world while stealing massive amounts of industrial data. The majority of the targets of the hacking group were in the automotive, electronic, aerospace, energy, and pharmaceutical industries. The group, believed to be based in China, has also targeted defense contractors, colleges and universities, law firms, and political organizations—including organizations related to Chinese minority ethnic groups.
Designated as Threat Group 3390 and nicknamed “Emissary Panda” by researchers, the hacking group has compromised victims’ networks largely through “watering hole” attacks launched from over 100 compromised legitimate websites, sites picked because they were known to be frequented by those targeted in the attack.
At least 50 organizations in those industries in the US and the United Kingdom had data stolen by members of Emissary Panda. Sites targeted included the website of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the US (as well as those of other embassies and non-governmental organizations); government agency websites around the world; manufacturing companies, many of whom were suppliers to defense contractors; and the Spanish defense manufacturer Amper. A cultural site for the Chinese Uyghur ethnic group was also used, apparently to target members of the Muslim minority for surveillance.
No zero-day vulnerabilities were used to breach targeted networks, instead “the group relied on old vulnerabilities such as CVE-2011-3544“—a near-year-old Java security hole—”and CVE-2010-0738 to compromise their targets,” Dell SecureWorks’ researchers reported. The group used a number of tools common to other Chinese hacking groups, but they had a few unique tools of their own with interfaces developed for Standard (Simplified) Chinese. One of these is the PlugX remote access tool, “a notorious piece of malware linked to a number of attacks and to another Threat Group, which researchers believe is also likely based out of China,” according to Dell SecureWorks researchers. It also appears the group used China’s Baidu search engine to perform reconnaissance on targets.
Hamas Charter: Article Two: The Link between Hamas and the Association of Muslim Brothers The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.
Article Twenty-Eight The Zionist invasion is a mischievous one. It does not hesitate to take any road, or to pursue all despicable and repulsive means to fulfill its desires. It relies to a great extent, for its meddling and spying activities, on the clandestine organizations which it has established, such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, Lions, and other spying associations. All those secret organizations, some which are overt, act for the interests of Zionism and under its directions, strive to demolish societies, to destroy values, to wreck answerableness, to totter virtues and to wipe out Islam. It stands behind the diffusion of drugs and toxics of all kinds in order to facilitate its control and expansion. The Arab states surrounding Israel are required to open their borders to the Jihad fighters, the sons of the Arab and Islamic peoples, to enable them to play their role and to join their efforts to those of their brothers among the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The other Arab and Islamic states are required, at the very least, to facilitate the movement of the Jihad fighters from and to them. We cannot fail to remind every Muslim that when the Jews occupied Holy Jerusalem in 1967 and stood at the doorstep of the Blessed Aqsa Mosque, they shouted with joy: “Muhammad is dead, he left daughters behind.” Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims. “Let the eyes of the cowards not fall asleep.”Read all 36 Hamas Charter Articles here.
Cant make this up! Notice how blame always included Israel.
NYT:GAZA CITY — A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles.
The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of the Red Cross, followed numerous human-rights reports accusing both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, of war crimes in their devastating battle last summer, and came as the International Criminal Court prosecutor conducts a preliminary inquiry into that conflict.
It was clear during the opening session that the Red Cross would face a steep climb to convince militant Islamists that international law should govern their resistance against Israel.
“The prophet used to give orders to his army that you don’t kill any child, don’t cut any tree,” one fighter said promisingly, lending Quranic support to the principle of distinguishing between soldiers and civilians. “As long as he is not fighting me, I should not kill him.”
But a colleague soon countered, “The prophet is different than today,” and the conversation quickly shifted from Hamas’s own questionable methods to the enemy.
“They killed us, they killed our babies,” one militant insisted, speaking of the Israeli military. Of the humanitarian principles underpinning both Islam and international law, he added, “Sometimes we need to overlook these things, because the situation is different.”
The Red Cross developed its program in conjunction with Islamic scholars several years ago, but ramped it up after last summer’s deadly battle. So far this year, it has conducted six sessions for a total of 210 fighters from Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades and two other Gaza armed groups. Another workshop is scheduled for this week.
Skeptics may question the utility of teaching humanitarian law to a guerrilla force that the United States and the European Union classify as a terrorist organization. The Qassam Brigades fired thousands of rockets and mortars toward Israeli cities last summer; its weapons caches have been found in civilian homes and schools across Gaza, and Israel alleges that it uses Palestinian residents as human shields, purposely risking their lives to mobilize international ire against Israel.
But Red Cross leaders say they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike, if only because they now consider their international image a critical component of their struggle.
Mamadou Sow, who heads Red Cross operations in Gaza, said that in April he presented a critique of Hamas’s conduct during the 2014 hostilities to its top political and military leaders, and that they “welcomed it” and “indicated that they are a learning organization.” He said they also “challenged us to keep in mind the topology of the Gaza Strip,” one of the most densely populated patches on the planet.
“For the first time,” said Jacques de Maio, director of the Red Cross delegation in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “Hamas is actually, in a private, protected space, expressing a readiness to look critically at a number of things that have an impact on their level of respect for international humanitarian law.”
He added, “Whether this will translate into something concrete, time will tell.”
Besides participating in the workshops, Hamas has altered its propaganda in the aftermath of the war. New talking points stress that tunnel attacks last summer targeted military positions, not civilian communities, and argue — dubiously — that rockets fly toward civilian areas because the Gaza groups lack guiding technology.
Still, Hamas leaders routinely praise attacks on Israelis, and there are widespread reports that Qassam is rebuilding tunnels to infiltrate Israeli territory.
Last week, in announcing the arrest of a Qassam fighter in July, Israel’s security service said that he had told interrogators “the organization’s fighters endanger many civilians by storing explosives in their homes, on the instructions of Hamas commanders.”
Mr. de Maio of the Red Cross acknowledged that “a big ethical, fundamental question would be, ‘Are we now shaking hands with the devil?’ ” But he said his group’s work with rogue rulers and rebels around the world had altered their modi operandi. He cited a 2011 episode in Afghanistan in which operatives painted a vehicle like an ambulance. “We engaged with the Taliban and it was a long process,” he said. Eventually commanders issued an order saying it was a mistake that should not be repeated, “and it didn’t happen again.”
The Red Cross and the Qassam Brigades let reporters from The New York Times observe the first day of the workshop in July, on the condition that neither the trainers nor the participants be named, and that no photographs be taken. Role-playing and case studies — one exercise involved an armed group firing on an invading tank from the garden of a civilian home, near a hospital — were also off limits.
Most of the men were in their 20s and wore trim beards. Their leader opened by saying, “All what we’re going to hear we can find in our religion,” urging them “to take it very seriously” and reminding them to silence their cellphones.
The seminar unfolded in a room of Al Salam Restaurant, overlooking the beachfront where four young cousins were killed by Israeli missiles in 2014, a seminal episode that prompted one of the loudest international outcries of the war. Israeli military investigators later classified the attack as a tragic mistake.
During five hours of conversation, the fighters did not reflect on their own questionable activities or debate any situations they faced regarding risk to civilians while operating in Gaza’s urban landscape. Instead, they repeatedly turned the focus to Israel.
“You are dealing with an enemy that there’s not any difference between soldier and civilian,” insisted one fighter in a plaid shirt.
“Israelis violated everything,” another declared. “You say this also to the Jews?”
Yes, the Red Cross officials said, they conduct similar sessions with the Israeli military. This prompted more outrage. “You equalize the victim and the criminal,” one fighter said accusingly. “All of you, until now, you did not denounce the crimes of the Zionists.”
Others challenged Red Cross war efforts — providing water to refugee camps, repairing downed power lines, restoring cellular service, arranging with Israel to evacuate the wounded from bombarded areas.
“What was your role when the massacre in Rafah happened?” one fighter wanted to know, referring to Black Friday, when Qassam fighters took the remains of a slain Israeli soldier after a tunnel battle, prompting an Israeli assault that killed as many as 200 civilians. “We were besieged inside the hospital — why didn’t the I.C.R.C. help us?”
The trainer allowed, “The whole environment was very complicated, we couldn’t deal with everything and every place — you can’t have a war without victims.”
The Qassam coordinator, who gave only his nom de guerre, Abu Mahmoud, refused to let participants be interviewed about their experience or to engage in any substantive discussion of the group’s methods. “We did not commit war crimes as much as the Israelis did,” he said, adding that “civilian casualties happen because we are not an organized army.”
As for the International Criminal Court inquiry into both sides, he said with a shrug: “It will not affect us. We are, eventually, victims and they are occupiers, so there is no comparison.”
A 23-year-old Qassam member who participated in a similar workshop in May 2014, was permitted to speak only with Abu Mahmoud monitoring. He said that he had “signed a paper saying I should not kill civilians” upon joining Qassam four years ago, and that last summer, “the rules and teachings of this training made me fight within limits.”
Pressed for examples, the fighter recalled one instance in which “some of my colleagues wanted to have a military task inside a school, but we prevented this from happening.”
“We explained the consequences of such actions,” he said. “What will happen in the I.C.C. against us, and the international community. We don’t want to have a weakness point, and that the occupation will use it against us.”
Philadelphia: The School District of Philadelphia’s special registration for immigrant students who speak a language other than English closes on Aug. 28, giving families of such students roughly two weeks to register their child for the upcoming school year.
The school year begins Sept. 8 for grades 1 through 12, and on Sept. 12 for kindergarten students; interested families should contact the Multilingual Assessment Center at (215) 400–4240 and selecting option 1. The office is open for registration Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.
Last year, the center registered more than 800 students from more than 70 countries. Collectively, those students spoke more than 40 different native languages.
The district also noted families shouldn’t be concerned about registering their child based on their immigration status. The district referred to Plyler v. DOE, a U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that it is unconstitutional to deny free public education to children who are not legally admitted into the United States.
City immigrant populations have been on the rise since Mayor Michael Nutter’s signage of a pair of executive orders, starting in 2009.
“All city services, including but not limited to the following listed services, shall be made available to all city of Philadelphia residents, consistent with applicable law, regardless of the person’s citizenship or legal immigration status,” read a portion of one order. “[Those services include] police and fire services; medical services, such as emergency medical services, general medical care at community health centers and immunization; testing and treatment with respect to communicable diseases; mental health services; children protective services and access to city facilities, such as libraries and recreation centers.”
That order also stipulated that law enforcement officials alone are allowed to question an individual’s immigration status, or those who work for a municipally–governed service or program. Nutter’s second immigrant executive oder, signed in 2014, ended the procedure of detaining individuals without a warrant on behalf of Immunization and Customs Enforcement.
“No person in the custody of the city who otherwise would be released from custody shall be detained pursuant an ICE civil immigration detainer request,” read a portion of the most recent executive order, “nor shall notice of his or her pending release be provided, unless such person is being released after conviction for a first or second degree felony involving violence and the detainer is supported by a judicial warrant.
“The police commissioner, the superintendent of prisons and all other relevant officials to the city are nearby required to take appropriate action to implement this order.”
And earlier this summer, Jim Kenney, winner of May’s democratic mayoral primary, joined with pro–immigrant groups Juntos and Philadelphia Stands United to support Nutter’s stance on immigration and to roundly reject Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments on immigrants.
“I also would wish that the United States congress would be as animated and as energetic about gun violence and education as they are about holding immigrants without a warrant,” Kenney said. “Our neighborhoods are not safer if people are afraid of the police. They’re not safer if they’re afraid to come forward and be a witness. They’re not safer if the relationship between the police and the community is a negative one.”
Mayor’s Office of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Executive Director Jennifer Rodriguez said Nutter has “repeatedly stated that a piecemeal approach to immigration is not effective and has called onto congress and the federal government to address our broken system by enacting reform that reflects the welcoming values that our nation and our city were founded on.”
Syrians?
In part from Refugee Resettlement: Yikes! Look at this opinion piece posted at a “progressive” website of all places. This worldly Syrian woman, born in America and apparently now living in Syria, says many Syrian so-called ‘refugees’ arriving in Europe are not from unsafe parts of Syria, but are just looking for “El Dorado” (a mythical city of gold)—for Europe to give them free everything!
Here is some of what Deena Stryker says of her fellow Syrians (emphasis is mine):
“My husband is one of 10 children. Of that large extended family, many have taken the boats to Europe now. Some are in Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Germany. Several are in Turkey. None of these people needed to leave Syria. They were all living in safe, violence free zones (Latakia on the coast). None of them had been attacked or threatened or were in any danger from Syrian government, or police, etc.
Why did they leave? They left homes and cars and possessions here in order to take up the offer of FREE money and housing in Europe. They had been sure that once in Europe they will be given free medical, education, housing, food and provided for in every way forever. They think of Europe as “El Dorado”.There is also a large dose of jealousy involved, as they saw their neighbors going and they didn’t want to be left behind. Syrian hate to see someone else get a good deal, and not get a piece of the pie themselves. More here.
Daily Beast: The answer might define the future of the American left, which has split over race, party politics, and the power of protest since BLM activists targeted Bernie Sanders.
Last Saturday, for the second time in a month, protesters who identified themselves as members of the Black Lives Matter movement leapt onstage to interrupt a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.“I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, even with all of these progressives, but you’ve already done that for me,” said Marissa Johnson, who was roundly booed before demanding and receiving a four-minute moment of silence for the death of Michael Brown, as Sanders stood behind her and fellow protester Mara Willaford.
The Seattle protest sparked a particularly strong counter-reaction, especially among the white liberals who form the core of Bernie Sanders’ base. Sanders is not the frontrunner to win his party’s nomination. Many on both the left and right are asking: Why him?
Sanders currently trails Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, whose events have not yet been successfully interrupted, by 38 points in Quinnipiac’s most recent national poll. He has made criminal justice reform a tentpole issue early in his campaign. Jeb Bush, who trails Republican frontrunner Donald Trump by 10 points, allegedly reached out to local Black Lives Matter leaders a night before, then was shouted down at a campaign event less than 24 hours later.
Why protest Bernie and not Hillary? Why Jeb and not Trump?
Interviews with 10 members of both local and national branches of Black Lives Matter—as well as with the political campaigns they’ve tested—reveals no single, easy answer. It’s one part logistical—from the less stringent security of a second-tier candidate to the simple timing of a speech.
And it is another part—a larger part—purely organizational.
In response to the death of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer, activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi rallied together on Twitter to create visibility with a unified phrase: Black Lives Matter. As more black Americans — like Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray — were killed by police, the phrase gained prominence and resonance — both on Twitter, and in the protests that would follow, nationwide.
In the process of trying to grow its message from a hashtag spawned by three activists into a national political movement, Black Lives Matter—a decentralized organization with official and unofficial Facebook pages, meet-ups, and blogs throughout America and the world—is splintering internally on how to express that message, and even defining what that message truly is.
After all, when an article says Black Lives Matter interrupted a campaign event, who is a part of Black Lives Matter, anyway? The answer to that question is even harder to answer.
The answer to that question might be a small group of people who self-identify as a “radical organization.” The answer to that question might also be anyone.
And the answer to that question might define the future of the American left, which has split over race, party politics, and the limits and powers of protesting since two activists took over a podium in Seattle seven days ago.
Nikki Stephens, 16, was hit with a barrage of Facebook messages and texts on Saturday night.
“My phone was blowing up,” Stephens says. “Everyone automatically assumed I was one of the two women”—the protesters who took over the Sanders event in Seattle.
Stephens, a high schooler and track athlete, had the keys to the “Black Lives Matter: Seattle” Facebook page. She had “watched the video from all angles” of Johnson and Willaford, and now—as the de facto voice of Black Lives Matter: Seattle, she believed—it was her turn to speak.
She had been drawn into the movement months ago by an activist who came to her school and compelled her to take action on the recentspate of young black menkilled by police.
“I wanted to raise awareness—that this is not a joke. That people are actually dying,” she says. “That’s why I made the page.”
With the help and guidance of her friend, she started sharing stories of injustice and dispatches from the national chapter. Quickly, her page grew to be the largest Black Lives Matter page in Seattle.
Elaine Thompson/AP
Then Johnson and Willaford, whom Stephens had never met, took over the podium at the Bernie Sanders’ campaign event last weekend.
“I felt like I had to come up with a response,” she says.
There was, however, a problem: Stephens is a Bernie Sanders supporter. Panicked, she called her friend who had gotten her into the movement to plan her next move.
“I was like, ‘What should I do? I don’t really know what to do,’” she says.
As the night progressed, she started receiving messages filled with hate, threats, and racial slurs—especially, she says, from Bernie Sanders fans. They all wanted an apology—one for something she didn’t do.
So she crafted one.
“To the people of Seattle and #BernieSanders I am so sorry for what happened today in Seattle. I am a volunteer who just runs this page and I am only just starting to get into the movement,” she wrote. “I was unaware of what happened and now that I’ve seen the video [of the event] I would like to say again that I am sorry. That is not what Black Lives Matter stands for and that is not what we’re about. Do not let your faith in the movement be shaken by voices of two people. Please do not question our legitimacy as a movement. Again I would like to apologize to the people of Seattle and I will be trying to reach out to Mr. Sanders.”
That’s when Stephens received messages from both Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford.
“Of course, you can’t tell tone by text. But when they approached me, through texting, it felt sort of aggressive,” says Stephens. “But it wasn’t like they were mad. They were like, ‘Who are you? Why’d you start your page?’”
They told Stephens to change the name of her page—that she had no claim to Black Lives Matter: Seattle.
However, Willaford, 25, and Johnson, 23, had not been public leaders of any Black Lives Matter: Seattle pages up until the day of the event.
At 5:45 a.m. on Saturday morning, Johnson and Willaford created a separate Facebook page, also, confusingly enough, called “Black Lives Matter Seattle.” At 6:35 p.m., they issued a press release—the page’s first post—called “Black Lives Matter #BowDownBernie Action” that listed Johnson as a press contact and was signed by both Johnson and Willaford.
At the bottom of the note, they are listed as “Black Lives Matter Seattle co-founders.”
Johnson and Willaford were previously leaders of the group Outside Agitators 206, an activist coalition based in Seattle. According to OA206’s website, the fourth of the organization’s four points of unity is this:
Jason Kempin/BET via Getty
“Fuck the police: As an institution fundamentally rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness we reject the police presence in our communities, absolutely. It is our responsibility to hold each other accountable and keep each other safe.”
The organization appeared largely dormant over the last several months. According to its website, the group’s sole activity in July was the reposting of a Movement for Black Lives event invitation and an article from TheRoot.com.
After the event, Stephens—thinking she had accidentally claimed a page that wasn’t her own and facing mounting pressure—ceded the name of the page. She changed the name to “Black in Seattle.” Willaford and Johnson’s page was now the primary Black Lives Matter Seattle group on Facebook.
“They said, ‘We appreciate what you’re doing. We appreciate you trying to be involved,’” she says of the texts. “‘But it’s not an official message. We’ve gotten calls from the national people at Black Lives Matter.’”
Then, later on, another Facebook group claiming to be a part of Black Lives Matter instead demanded Bernie Sanders and his Seattle-based organizers apologize to the movement. Some national media reported that as a Black Lives Matter response, as well.
The national Black Lives Matter Facebook page then posted a statement at 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning.
“The #BlackLivesMatter organization did not create any petitions demanding apology from Seattle based organizers. We have not issued a public apology, neither have we made any public statements demanding an apology.”
So who is Black Lives Matter in this situation? Did the movement send protesters to disrupt Bernie Sanders?
“The point of disruption is to challenge business as usual, to really challenge the community of Seattle—largely white liberals—and their inability to see anti-black racism.”
“I didn’t. My chapter did,” says Patrisse Cullors—one of three people credited with starting and spreading the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag that was used to help grow a national movement. She’s also the founder of Dignity and Power Now, a Los Angeles-based organization that works for the rights of incarcerated people and their families. “What we do is we support the chapters. We support their local demands and goals. They tell us what they need us to build support around.”
Cullors, 32, says she met up with Willaford at a Black Lives Matter national retreat and that they “talk all of the time,” but she never gave direct instructions to interrupt Sanders’ rally. She calls Willaford and Johnson’s branch “a very new chapter.”
“That chapter did all the work. And we supported it by ensuring they were a part of the chapter,” says Cullors. “It’s very rare there’s a national directive for people to do things. We amplify and support.”
But what about the leader of the larger Black Lives Matter Facebook group in Seattle—one that existed publicly well before Johnson and Willaford got in front of a podium in Seattle?
“I’m not sure where she was coming from,” says Cullors. “I think what’s important is that folks understand the point of disruption: to challenge business as usual, to really challenge the community of Seattle—largely white liberals—and challenging their inability to see anti-black racism, as a part of a larger pushback against the state.”
Does she understand why there might be confusion over who has true ownership of the message in Seattle? If Stephens had publicly acted first and not Willaford and Johnson, would she not be in charge?
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” says Cullors. “There is a network called Black Lives Matter, with chapters and local affiliates. It could be very confusing for some to think it’s all the same. There could be some that use our name, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in alignment with our message.”
Cullors says there are now “registered chapters” of the national Black Lives Matter movement, and cites Boston, Los Angeles, the Bay Area and now Seattle as those who have filled out the necessary paperwork.
But a list of official chapters does not appear on the official Black Lives Matter website and is not publicly available, according to Cullors. There is no registration form on the official website and no statement noting that local Black Lives Matters groups must sign up with the national branch.
Willaford and Johnson did not respond to repeated requests for comment by phone, email, and social media channels. And Cullors wanted to note that she has no problem with Stephens, herself—in fact, she’d like her to meet with Johnson and Willaford to see how she can help the movement—but she believed the apology to be off-message.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to issue an apology trying to censor black folks,” she says.
“Anyone can be a Black Lives Matter activist,” she adds. “That [statement] wasn’t official.”
***
The Seattle disruption exacerbated a nascent divide on the activist left between black and white progressives.
Some white writers, like Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan, wrote after the event that the Black Lives Matter movement was alienating the candidate that best served the movement’s interests—or, as he titled his post, “Don’t Piss On Your Best Friend.”
“Many on the left find it hard to come out and say ‘this was stupid,’ because they support both Bernie Sanders and the Black Lives Matter movement,” he wrote. “That is a misperception of the political landscape. Believing that a small group of angry young protesters did something that was not well thought out need not make you feel guilty or racist; rash and counterproductive things are what young people do.”
“But maybe there is a more important question here than mere tactics,” he wrote. “Perhaps shutting down a political speech is, normatively, wrong.”
In The New Republic, Jamil Smith took issue with some of the responses by white progressive media after the speech.
“These are supposed to be the white people who want Black Lives Matter to succeed. These people were willing to throw black people under the bus for the white dude they want to win. That’s the same anti-blackness energy that we’re fighting against.”
“Since when are protest tactics designed to make the people whom they are targeting feel more comfortable and less annoyed?” he asked. “And since when is Sanders, or (Republican presidential candidate Ben) Carson, or any candidate exempt from being pushed?”
“What was most shocking to me about the reactions to the Bernie Sanders shutdown was the amount of rage from progressive white people for two African-American women who were standing up for what they believe in. The reaction was gross,” Julius Jones, founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Worcester, Mass., tells The Daily Beast.
“These are supposed to be the white people who want Black Lives Matter to succeed. These people were willing to throw black people under the bus for the white dude they want to win. That’s the same anti-blackness energy that we’re fighting against.”
By late Saturday night, Nikki Stephens, a rising high school junior in Washington state, may have accidentally received the worst and most vocal of that hate—and some of it from fans of the candidate she had already supported.
“I heard from so many people and, although you are liberal and you do support Bernie Sanders—and you do say you support Black Lives Matter—I saw a lot of them come out and say some very nasty things about the movement. There were so many people posting claiming to be liberals, then going back and using slurs, and perpetuating stereotypes. And the sexism I saw from men,” she says, trailing off.
***
Protesters in Massachusetts’ Black Lives Matters chapters say there’s a simple logistical reason Bernie Sanders’ speeches have been interrupted twice—once in Seattle, and once before in Phoenix last month—but Hillary Clinton hasn’t yet been disrupted.
Neither Bernie Sanders nor Jeb Bush have those protective details. Hillary Clinton most certainly does.
“They’re not to be pressed in any way. The Secret Service are very dangerous people, and their operation is protect their asset at all costs,” said Jones, who was part of a group of activists who spoke to—instead of protesting against—Hillary Clinton last weekend in New Hampshire. “To be confronting an issue such as police brutality—and then to tell that same group of people that they should go charge at the [former] first lady—is a little short-sighted.”
Yancey, 22, views Black Lives Matter as a “radical” group. But she says that rushing the stage with the intention of taking over the microphone at a Hillary Clinton campaign event is not viable.
“We’re a radical organization, with radical politics, and we have radical tactics. There’s no way of softening that. But we are strategic, and we’re interested in remaining safe and alive. Something like storming the stage was not a possibility with the Secret Service [present],” Yancey says.
According to New England-area Black Lives Matter activists like Yancey and Jones, they came to demonstrate at Clinton’s New Hampshire event last weekend—only to be offered a private meeting with the Democratic frontrunner herself.
But the Clinton campaign has a slightly different story to tell about the night the former Secretary of State met with local Black Lives Matter reps. The campaign contends that the Black Lives Matter activists arrived late to the event and were unable to enter because the room was at capacity.
“There were another 15 people who also came late and couldn’t get in, so they all were taken to an overflow room. Our team on the ground offered to essentially swap some people out so that they could go into the town hall with Hillary but they declined and asked to meet with her after the event. She met with them for about 15 minutes after the event,” a Clinton spokesperson tells The Daily Beast.
Some activists for criminal justice reform, like Families Against Mandatory Minimums strategic initiatives director Kevin Ring, believe that Clinton is the candidate who deserves the most scrutiny for her previous stances on mass incarceration.
“It’s incumbent on her, more than others, to explain what precisely she got wrong, and what the country got wrong—and what she would do to reverse that,” Ring says.
In 1994, as the House and Senate were considering whether to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, Clinton said (PDF), “We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders. The ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ for violent offenders has to be part of the plan. We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.”
As a senator running for the presidency, she opposed making shorter sentences for crack cocaine-related offenses retroactive for previously-convicted inmates, even though many advocates had called the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences unjust.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have backed away from the tough-on-crime reforms they championed in the mid-’90s. But, advocates say, since Hillary Clinton was involved in creating a climate of mass incarceration that disproportionately targets black Americans, she has a greater responsibility to address why and how her stances about the criminal justice system have changed.
In their private meeting with Hillary Clinton, members of the Black Lives Matter movement challenged her to reflect on “her personal involvement in the war on drugs and the anti-black policies that were enacted by her family and throughout her career,” Yancey says.
“That’s not what we heard. We didn’t hear the reaction that we wanted,” Yancey adds.
What they heard was talk about policy and legislation. Clinton told them that her previous positions on sentencing were due to a “different climate and a different set of problems” in the ’90s.
With the criminal justice reform that was passed in the ’90s, Jones argues, the “undercurrent of it is anti-blackness. What in her heart has changed… that will actually change the tide? And how can she use her change to be an example for the United States?”
“She has acknowledged the failure of some of her work. It’s just the next step: the acknowledgement of what’s behind that,” Yancey adds. “Hillary Clinton’s feelings about anti-blackness in our government are very important. She wasn’t willing to go there with us, but it’s a crucial conversation. If you’re looking for solutions to the problem… [and] there’s a form of white supremacy in your solutions, that’s going to continue.”
The Clinton campaign contends that their candidate has been reaching out to the Black Lives Matter movement and was paying attention to criminal justice reform and social inequality.
“[O]n an ongoing basis our team has also been reaching out and talking to different parts of the BLM movement as well as a wide range of organizations, activists, stakeholders, etc. so that policy proposals are informed by many voices and experiences,” a Clinton spokesperson tells The Daily Beast. “Hillary has been speaking out about Black Lives Matter and criminal justice reform for some time… it was the subject of her first policy speech of the campaign in April… in which she laid out specific policy proposals. In addition to criminal justice reform she has also broadened to talk about the opportunity gap and systemic inequities.”
Tyrone Brown, a Seattle-based activist who says he “speaks with Black Lives Matter, but not for Black Lives Matter,” says Bernie Sanders was disrupted at his event on Saturday in part “because it was on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death.”
“Whether it had been Clinton, Perry, or whoever—if anybody had come to Seattle, something would have happened that day,” he says. “Something would’ve had to have happened to highlight it—that tragedy. In this case, it was Bernie Sanders.”
Brown runs an initiative at Seattle University, where he’s an administrator, called Moral Mondays at SU, which organizes events like talks, discussions, and movie nights as part of a “#BlackLivesMatter initiative.”
Brown met Mara Willaford on the way back to Seattle after the Movement for Black Lives event in Cleveland. He says he now recognizes Willaford and Johnson as the leaders of Black Lives Matter Seattle.
“There’s the slight issue with some semantics around timing: How can they take an action before they become an official chapter for the movement? It doesn’t matter,” he says. “If no one had taken advantage of the fact that the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination was speaking in Seattle on that day, somebody was going to take some type of action. They just happened to be the ones that did it.”
***
Although she had to hand over the name to her Facebook group, Stephens says she now believes that the protest was ultimately good for the visibility of Bernie Sanders—and that, days after the event, she sees where Willaford and Johnson were coming from.
“Watching social media after it happened, I came to realize what they were doing. A lot of people wrote in saying that it made them want to learn about Bernie Sanders,” she says. “They inadvertently had done their job—even if that wasn’t their aim.”
Stephens hasn’t heard from Johnson or Willaford since she relinquished the name of the page. She said she’d like to continue her activism, but was discouraged by her experience on Saturday night.
“This really brought out the worst in people,” she says.
“We have waited and waited and waited. Two more people dead in Ferguson. We can’t take a back seat anymore. I want people to clear their minds of what happened, to stop making it about the women [who interrupted Sanders’ speech]. What did you do? You went looking for more information.”
